I watched a metallic spheroid rise in the distance over the lip of the arroyo. A shiny dime in a green-blue cloudless sky, the sun’s position behind and below it gave its outline a golden, mesmerizing aura.
Sound below broke the spell when a calf bawled to her mother halfway up the ridge.
Not only the calf’s mother and I heard it. The glowing dime tilted down towards the sound, then began to move closer.
They say cows are stupid, but when she saw her calf in danger, she acted without hesitation, hurling her substantial mass forward at a fair pace. It was anyone’s guess who would reach the baby first.
A laser beam cut deeply along her back, removing her hide in a strip. She screamed across the arroyo, still trying to reach her child.
Neither survived; I lived to tell the tale.
[144 words]
Linda is today’s host for dVerse. Linda says:
The line I have chosen was taken from [Jim Harrison’s] book, Dead Man’s Float from the poem titled Cow. I will not include the poem so as not to influence your words. Here is the line you are to use within your flash fiction of 144 words or less.
“A cow is screaming across the arroyo.”
image link here
Tao Talk 
OOOH. Aliens- how clever!
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It takes a lot to make a cow scream. I need to read Harrison’s poem to see what made his cow scream.
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Awesome tale! I love the image of the mama cow charging to her baby. Darn those aliens!
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I’m so glad you enjoyed the tale, Victoria! I wanted to fire back at the aliens but ran out of words…
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Very evocative and creative. Alien cow mutilations are mysterious things. I, myself, saw a UFO over the California desert. Your story has more truth than you may suspect.
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My mom and I saw one and the evidence it left behind on the ground (burn marks) and I used to see them just over the treetops out where my folks lived (the lights that go up down sideways etc.) What did the one you saw look like?
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And what a tale! So well done.
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Thanks Sascha!
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Those alien invaders even bother the cows. I like how she raced to her calf right to the end.
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Thank you, Frank.
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I can almost see the scene! Very vivid description.
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Thanks, Sadje.
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You’re welcome 😉
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This is a great interpretation. (K)
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Kerfe, thank you.
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I guess them aliens love them some steak? ;)
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Could be!
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Cows aren’t stupid. They are slow. Mothers do what they need to do! Very creative!
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Mary thank you very much and I agree on all.
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I love cows. Our band would practice at the drummers house and there were cows across the road. I would go up to the fence every Saturday and the same one would come running and let me pet her. The are not stupid.
They can be odd also. We lived beside a pasture that had a bunch of cows. One morning I was getting in my car for work and looked around… 8 cows were just staring at me…I looked behind me and back at them and asked…What? Kinda creeped me out lol
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Excellent Lisa! A great story in 144 words and I loved the alien ship description ☺️
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Thank you very much, Christine :)
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You’re welcome ☺️
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I love your comments here, Max. I’ve never been around them much, but I know they’ve been bred for how much “product” they produce and aren’t treated right. When I was looking for a picture, I saw a headline that says, “discovery made that cows are good mothers.” D’oh! If you didn’t yank their babies away from them when they were born you could see they are with your own eyes. That is kind of weird they were watching you like that. Maybe they can see things humans can’t? Or maybe they wanted you to help them make a break for it lol
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When I think back on how they were looking at me…I bust out laughing but at the time I was thinking…is there something on me? What are they thinking? Are they plotting the end of me?
I never thought if they wanted my help…could have been!
I can tell you something that we didn’t know at the time… They kept a donkey with them…for a reason. The donkey will drive out other predators from the cattle. A donkey is the loudest animal on God’s green earth. It’s name was jack and he was really friendly…but REALLY loud.
They gave Jack away because instead of protecting the cows…he nipped at their legs lol. My wife and I missed him.
Well I got off topic quick didn’t I? Yes they are very protective…I don’t know many mothers of any species that is not.
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That’s so funny, his name was Jack lol.
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Well done, Lisa. Frightning…as was your intent. Accomplished.
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Thanks Judy!
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The discussion around aliens competes with the universal nobility of motherhood. Interesting points put forth here…
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I’m hoping that the message that extraterrestrials may not look at Earth life as more than with a utilitarian eye, similar to how humans view most other life forms on the planet, comes through.
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Just came across these lines by Parker Nash on Medium
Are you that big of a narcissist to believe that what you are experiencing in this time is monumental and unprecedented? We like to think that what we are experiencing is unique, but in reality, it’s not.
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Reality is infinite repetitions, but the experience is unique for each individual as it is their piece of the equation that makes the view possible. The Bible says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” but I’m sure it was said long before then. We’re endlessly recycled atoms, and the jury is out whether there are bits and pieces still attached to those atoms when we break apart and are reconstituted into a new thing. Is what the person who witnessed the UFO laser a mother cow and calf monumental and unprecedented? Yes. To that person, it is. Narcissism has nothing to do with it.
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A bovine horror story, a sad end, as always.
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Never get in the way of a mother’s love.
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Cows have been known to make a ring around their farmer and protect him from an angry bull.
I like the way the aliens just drop into this, with no massive fanfare.
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I love that bit of info about cows’ protective nature <3 Aliens have to stay on the down low, don't you know? The observer is lucky they were able to witness it and live to tell about it!
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I wonder if this is just the first phase of the invasion or just a couple of alien teens killing for fun.
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We’ll find out…
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You give the mother cow a dignity many people don’t realize the DO possess.
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<3 Thank you. I tried.
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Okay. This seriously creeped me out! Not only aliens….not an abduction….but a willfully cruel and sadistic act. Awful. BUT….that means you wrote an excellent piece here that it drew that much of a reaction! Wow!
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Lillian, sorry you got creeped out. I pull info from here and there for poems and what I considered a “creepy” prompt got me thinking of the movie, “Cowboys and Aliens,” and it took off from there.
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